the ep, among other de­mands, stip­u­lates that all the sig­na­to­ries should “re­frain from un­der­tak­ing any ac­tions that may un­der­mine the sta­bil­ity of state in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the re­moval, ap­point­ment, de­mo­tion or pro­mo­tion of key of­fi­cials within the state dur­ing the pe­riod prior to the elec­tions, sub­ject to due and le­gal pro­cesses be­ing fol­lowed”.

How­ever, last week, Dr Tha­bane pro­moted Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent holomo Moli­beli to Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sioner, made Dr Mohlalefi Moteane a mem­ber of the Coun­cil of State, while also ap­point­ing Dr Kananelo Mos­ito (King’s Coun­sel) the new Pres­i­dent of the Court of Ap­peal.

Ac­cord­ing to sources close to the mat­ter, Dr Tha­bane re­ceived Mr Ramaphosa’s letter on Satur­day last week, two days af­ter prob­a­bly his most con­tro­ver­sial ap­point­ment — that of Dr Mos­ito as head of the coun­try’s ju­di­ciary — which has since sparked out­rage within the le­gal fra­ter­nity.

Mr ramaphosa is ex­pected to ar­rive in Le­sotho today to, among other things, en­gage Dr tha­bane on the ap­point­ments and also as­sess progress with re­gards next month’s snap elec­tions.

Gov­ern­ment sec­re­tary Moahloli Mphaka yes­ter­day con­firmed Mr Ramaphosa ar­rives in the coun­try today, but would not give de­tails of his agenda.

Mr Mphaka would also not com­ment on the South African deputy pres­i­dent’s letter.

Le­sotho holds na­tional As­sem­bly elec­tions two years ear­lier than an­tic­i­pated fol­low­ing the dra­matic col­lapse of the Dr tha­bane-led coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

The gov­ern­ment, which com­prised Dr Tha­bane’s All Ba­sotho Con­ven­tion (ABC), Le­sotho Congress for Democ­racy (LCD) and Ba­sotho Na­tional Party (BNP) led by Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Mo­thetjoa Metsing and Sports Min­is­ter th­e­sele ‘Maserib­ane, came to power in June 2012 but failed to last its full five-year term af­ter a bit­ter fall­out be­tween the pre­mier and his deputy.

Af­ter the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the al­liance, Mr ramaphosa fa­cil­i­tated the hold­ing of elec­tions on 28 Fe­bru­ary, under the guide­lines of the elec­toral Pledge.